It said 39 million sq m etre of shopping space is under construction across world's major cities and out of that India accounts for nearly 1.5 million sq metre.

Around 5,00,000 sq metre of new retail space is under construction in New Delhi. The largest two projects, DLF Mall of India at Noida (204,385 sq metre) and Logix City Centre Mall (1,11,483 sq metre) are both located in Noida.

Among tier-II cities, Hyderabad is the most active market with a current supply pipeline (4,83,000 sq metre), which is three times greater than its existing stock.

Chennai was ranked 15th in the global list of most active shopping centre development markets in 2013.

"Globally, a total of 39 million sq meter of shopping centre space is currently under construction across the world's major cities, representing a three million sq metre increase from 2013. Most of this development activity for shopping centre space around the world is focused in China," CBRE said.

According to the report, more than half of the shopping centre space under construction in the 180 countries surveyed is taking place within China's borders.

Shanghai takes the first position with 3.3 million sq m of space under construction, which is more than the combined space under construction i the total 86 European cities, excluding those in Russia and Turkey.

Just behind Shanghai is Chengdu with 3.2 million sq m, followed by Shenzhen and Tianjin with 2.7 million sq m and 2.5 million sq m under construction, respectively.

CBRE South Asia CMD Anshuman Magazine said: "Strong economic growth in many Asian markets has been attracting an increasing number of cross-border retailers. Even though China remains by far the most active market for shopping centre development, the tier I and II cities of India are also among the most active globally".

"Unfortunately, however, there continues to exist a dearth of quality shopping space in many of our market places. Along with the large-scale urbanisation of our leading cities and a burgeoning middle class population, it is this that has been driving shopping center development forward," he added.

This is the third year that CBRE has measured the level of shopping centre development in the world's 180 major cities. Survey was based on new centres of over 20,000 sq meter and excluded retail warehousing and factory outlet centres.